Officials in San Anselmo and Fairfax are bolstering the defense in the Ross Valley to constrain the proliferation of “small cell” antennas, which opponents say are a health and safety hazard.
The idea is to “make it clear that we are being tough,” said San Anselmo Mayor John Wright. “We want to be as strict as we possibly can.”
The San Anselmo Town Council on Tuesday tasked its legal team to beef up the town’s regulations with four objectives, including rules regarding public health, despite that state and federal laws preempt local control over the issue.
Other areas of focus include rules that would allow for random testing of the devices, require buffers and identify local community values.
There’s been a recent countywide public outcry with opponents to small cell antennas saying that there are adverse health and environmental effects that may be caused by exposure to microwave radiation emitted by the 4G and 5G devices. Those symptoms can include fatigue, headaches, sleep problems, anxiety, heart problems, learning and memory disorders, ringing in the ears and increased cancer risk, according to the EMF Safety Network website.
Opponents have organized groups to pack Board of Supervisors’ meetings and municipal council meetings in San Rafael, Mill Valley, Ross, San Anselmo and Fairfax. Mill Valley was among the first to adopt an urgency ordinance. Fairfax, San Anselmo and Ross modeled their urgency ordinances after Mill Valley’s.
But local leaders are struggling with how to best regulate telecommunications companies that want to install the devices in Marin in the long term. That’s because state and federal laws say that municipalities cannot regulate radio frequencies or electromagnetic waves that comply with Federal Communications Commission regulations, despite health concerns.
Further complicating the issue, the FCC last month adopted new rules designed to speed deployment of small wireless facilities. The rules limit the review of new installations by local jurisdictions to 60 days for existing structures and 90 days for entirely new facilities.
In an email to the county, Leland Kim, a spokesman for AT&T, wrote, “We maintain power levels at our antenna sites that are at or below, and most of the time far below, the limits established by government regulations. Expert scientists and government agencies responsible for health and safety have stated repeatedly that wireless antennas in compliance with FCC regulations do not pose health concerns.”
The San Anselmo council had already adopted an urgency ordinance, which is temporary, that requires residents to be notified within 300 feet of a proposed 5G antenna, among other rules.
In Fairfax, after about a four-hour hearing Thursday, the Planning Commission said that a proposal to regulate telecommunications communications is not strong enough. The commission decided to continue the discussion to a later meeting, allowing staff time to give the new rules more muscle.
The move comes a month after the Fairfax Town Council adopted an urgency ordinance that prohibits small cell antennas in residential zones and requires 1,500 feet of separation between the devices. The proposal considered Thursday would have cleaned up the language within a single section of the municipal code.
Fairfax resident Jess Lerner, who helped organize a group called 5G Free Marin, said she is encouraged by the leaders in Fairfax and San Anselmo.
“We want to create the best and strongest ordinance that we can to protect the well-being of our residents,” Lerner said. “Now our town council has the opportunity to write the strongest and best ordinance in the state.”
